Portugal Retreat June 2024 | Movement Medicine

Yoga & Wellness retreat to rural portugal

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June 24 - 29th 2024

Oleiros, Portugal

Our time together will be about detoxing our body, mind and spirit with movement, breath, the healing power of nature and plant-based medicine. Our beautiful venue, Vale de Moses has been featured in the National Geographic as one of the top 5 retreats in Europe and listed by Forbes, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Yoga Journal, OmYoga Magazine and others as one of the best retreats in the world!

Vale de Moses

View from the yoga shala

Arrival & Departure

Flying into Lisbon or Porto and enjoying at least 1 night in the city or by the beach before making the journey up to the mountains in highly recommended! You may want to extend your trip before and/or after the retreat to see more of Portugal.

For those looking to reach us by public transport, we recommend travelling via Lisbon for regular Rede Expressos coach services to our local town of Oleiros, where we’ll pick you up for the short drive to the valley. You can buy your coach tickets online (only visible a month in advance), via the Rede Expressos or via the MyRNE app on Apple or Google Play, from Lisboa Sete Rios to Oleiros. The Sete Rios coach station in Lisbon is located close to both the airports and city centre and easily accessible by metro, shuttle bus or taxi.

For those driving from Lisbon or Porto, you’ll find the most up to date and accurate directions on Google maps, as some roads don’t always featured on sat navs.

What to bring?

To make the most of your stay, take daily walks, hikes or runs in the forest and then cool off from the heat of the afternoons in our natural river pools. Bring a good pair of walking shoes or trainers, swimming costume and water bottle to re-hydrate regularly, a warm jumper as the temperature drops in the mountains significantly at night and to cover up after your morning yoga class, and a good torch or your phone, as the paths at night, unless moonlit, are dark! You can see the best 10 day weather forecast for us here.

For your yoga practice comfortable, soft stretchy clothing is all you need. We provide yoga mats, towels, and bath robes. Please bring your own sun tan lotion and mosquito repellent. Be sure to use the simplest, most natural version you can find of these and other washing products. You’ll be in and out of the rivers, and the water from your showers goes directly to irrigate orchard trees and shrubs. We have a range of natural soaps, shampoos and toothpaste available to buy on site. Pack Light. Remember that whatever you bring down the mountainside to Vale de Moses, you’ll have to take up again at the end of your stay.

Valleys at Vale de Moses

Natural plunge pool

Nourishing Food

Our hosts will lovingly prepare three delicious and nutritious vegetarian/vegan meals every day. Our talented plant-based chefs bring passion and joy to their cooking. They have years of experience with vegetarian and vegan food in a variety of settings around the world. Their fusion of ingredients, spices and flavours, according to the principles of Ayurveda, mean every dish is not only tasty but also easy to digest.

Start the day with warming tea, fruit and nuts. After which they serve a nourishing breakfast of rice, millet, quinoa or buckwheat porridge with fruit salad, toasted nuts and seeds, and freshly squeezed juice. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day when our stomachs are best able to digest. Dinners are light to help us sleep more deeply. Food is plentiful at Vale de Moses. They are well versed in looking after those who have specific dietary requirements. The majority of our menus are vegan and gluten free. If you have any dietary requirements or food allergies, please do let us know when booking.

Aryurvedic plant-based meals

Tasty treats

Courtyard for communal meals

Freshly prepared plant medicine

Passing time

Each day between classes and meals you will have the opportunity to spend your free time as you choose. We also recommend taking full advantage of being immersed in nature with some forest bathing, walking, hiking, wild swimming or just sitting/sunbathing and listening to nature.

The emerging science of forest bathing has shown that simply being around trees is healing. Phytoncides are one of many curative substances pine trees freely give to the air we breathe here. We recharge by just breathing in the curative air. When we draw our attention meditatively to the sensations arising in the body, we feel part of the wholeness. The trees can hear us. The birds make music with our own sounds.

Vale de Moses is surrounded by many beautiful tree lined walking routes, sensory journeys through rolling hills and valleys covered in wild flowers throughout the year. There are miles and miles of pathways to walk, hike or run, where you are unlikely to meet another human. Valley spaces lost in time far from the world. Hill top ventures with vast views along the Meanders of the Zêzere River to the highest peak in Portugal - Serra de Estrela - at the top.

Several natural water sources traverse the beautiful landscape. Swim and play in the refreshing rivers, streams and cascading pools that flow through these valleys. The larger Rio Zêzere is an hour’s walk through the forest if you’d like a longer swim.

We have curated several hiding spots all over the valley. There are plenty of hammocks, benches, deck chairs and secret places where you can sit, relax, read, write, draw or take a nap in the energising stillness of the forest. Tune in to the soundscape of water and birdsong. Inhale the rich forest aromas.

Accommodation

Wherever you stay, you will have nearby access to a selection of indoor and outdoor bathrooms and showers. All the beds are quality Portuguese-made mattresses with memory foam toppers, cotton sheets, blankets, mosquito nets, good pillows and duvets. Restorative sleep is an essential part of your retreat with us. Single, double and shared accommodation options are available.

Since our hosts arrived in 2008, they threw themselves wholeheartedly into restoring the four Xisto stone cottages at Vale de Moses, with great care and respect to the old local Portuguese traditions of building with natural materials: clay, lime, stone and wood.
You can choose from private double bedrooms in the main farmhouse (none have en-suites), or more popular with our returning guests, a place in one of the shared, open-plan cottages in the river valley below (Moses/Adega Cottage). If you prefer a glamping experience, sleep in one of several belle tents each mounted on separate stone terraces, with hammocks hanging in the shade of strawberry fruit trees or medronheiras. Our hosts live on site so their animals will also be present: 2 dogs, 2 pot-bellied pigs and 3 cats! They don't go anywhere near accommodation or shared spaces but you might see them around the property.

All accommodations include:

Storage space for your clothes
Hot water bottles
Easy access to hammocks or sun loungers
Fully furnished with carpets and lighting
Good quality pillows and duvets
Heaters or wood burning stoves
Mosquito nets

Nearby access to indoor bathrooms

Nearby access to 3 outdoor showers
Personal towels for the week
Personal bathrobe for the week
Beds are either quality mattresses or superb Portuguese made futons
Memory foam toppers, cotton sheets and blankets

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MOSES COTTAGE

Pricing

A deposit of £350 ($440) is required to secure your place. The remaining balance for your stay is due 6 weeks before the retreat begins, by Wednesday May 15th. Payment plans are available upon request.

FLASH SALE ANNOUNCED - receive 10% off when you book and pay in full by May 31st 2024!

Cancellation Policy: Your retreat booking (including the deposit) is non-refundable. However, we do allow someone to attend in your place as long as you notify us about the change in advance. We cannot issue partial refunds if you choose to arrive late or leave early.

Glamp in a Strawberry Belle Tent (Single, double or twin occupancy)

Sheltered under the shade of strawberry fruit trees peppered along a stone-terraced valley, each belle tent has the same comfy beds as the cottages, electricity for lights and charging devices, and a wood burning stove for the cooler spring and autumn nights. There are hammocks and sun loungers close by and wooden cabins with really nice compost toilets - so that all our guests can nourish the forest ecosystems every day during their stay - and private showers with spring valley water heated by the sun or in one of the gas-fired showers along your walk to the farmhouse.

Private belle tent - £1,095 ($1,375) per person
Double or twin belle tent - £975 ($1,225) per person

Private single belle tent
(interior)

Double belle tent
(couple)

Twin belle tent

Belle tent exterior

Moses & Adega Cottage (shared stone cottages)

The Moses Cottage is a Xisto stone house with four single beds over two open-plan levels. The spacious private bathroom to the side has a thermodynamic heated shower, dry compost toilet and its own wood burner. Below, there’s a spring water plunge pool and wooden deck with loungers, plus a number of hammocks and seating spaces along the terrace with dreamy views of the sunsets to the west. Moses has high speed WiFi connection should you need it.

Just beyond the Moses Cottage is the Adega. Another hand carved out of the mountainside cottage, originally for wine pressing and storage, the Adega is now a 3-bed shared cottage space equipped with wood burning stove, two single beds on separate levels with their own front doors and a third single bed above in a small private room we affectionately call the Ninja Suite.

Next to the Adega is a wooden and marble cabin with your dry compost toilet. The outdoor solar heated shower in the old grape pressing tank is an absolute treat in the warmer summer months. The thermo-dynamic heated showers at Moses or by the farmhouse are also available whenever needed.